You're invited to a Paranormal Pajama Party!

From women in white to witches, have you ever noticed how often the horrors in our favourite scary stories tend to look a lot like, uh… ladies?

Paranormal Pajama Party is a podcast that brings you classic ghost stories and legends featuring female phantoms and femme fatales.

Join me, Steph, a horror fan and feminist, as we dig up the social and cultural contexts behind each ghoulish gal, and then challenge the often one-dimensional portrayal of women in horror. Turns out there’s nothing scarier than the patriarchy.

This season on Paranormal Pajama Party, you can expect witches and their familiars, the Malay Peninsula's scariest ghost, a horror story from the American frontier, Bloody Mary's origin story and more.

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcipt here.

Follow @ParanormalPJParty on Instagram.

Transcript

[Thunder, rain, wind noises]

Steph: It's a dark and stormy night, the howling wind making the grass on the moors churn like waves on the roughest sea. 

In the distance looms a castle with a single candle flickering in the highest room in the tallest tower. What's that, coming your way quickly? Why, it's a beautiful woman in a sparkling white nightgown, wind whipping her hair violently around her face. 

[Woman panting]

She stumbles and glances behind her in terror. What's she running from? You can't quite make it out, so you squint into the darkness behind her. 

Oh no. Oh. No. No. No, it can't be. It's... THE PATRIARCHY.

[Rain and wind stop]

Hi! I'm Steph, and I'm a horror fan and a bit of a feminist killjoy. 

No, no.

I'm just a gal in her late early 30s who believes that women are people. And that, as people, we deserve pockets. And that those pockets should be big enough to hold a horror novel or two. 

I like scary stories because they're surprising, they stick with you, and they can be mind-bending in the best way.

But recently, I realized that a surprising number of stories I was reading featured a woman as the antagonist. You know, a jilted lover, a mourning mother, the unwilling bride of Satan. And each of them was threatening the cozy worldview of some self-absorbed male protagonist. "Huh," I thought to myself. "That seems... weirdly topical."

The whole thing made me want to throw a paranormal pajama party – and you're invited!

Paranormal Pajama Party is a podcast that brings you classic ghost stories and legends featuring female phantoms and femme fatales. Join me as we dust the cobwebs off of each terrifying tale to shed some light on its social and cultural contexts. Then, using a feminist lens, we'll unravel the stories to challenge the often one-dimensional portrayal of women in horror. 

Does othering female ghoulies, ghosties, and babely long-leggedy beasties underscore the patriarchy's need to oppress us? Or is it a sneaky – and extremely backhanded – acknowledgment of our power?

Get ready for spine-tingling tales punctuated by critical discussions, and probably more than a few bad puns, as we dare to face the deep-rooted fears that society projects onto us. 

So grab a flashlight and a midnight snack and slip into your sexiest pillow-fighting outfit because you're invited to a paranormal pajama party.

Ghosts have stories. Women have voices. Dare to listen.

[Music]